Data Protection

How you can contact HilltopSwipe

If you have any questions about your privacy rights, or if you would like to change your privacy preferences, you can contact us in the following ways:

• By email at info@HilltopSwipe.com

Further information about HilltopSwipe is available at HilltopSwipe.com

How and why we use your personal data

We collect and process personal data in line with the requirements of European legislation. We process your data with a specific reason in focus and we understand that we cannot use your data without limitation.

We gather and process your personal data for a variety of reasons and rely on a number of different legal bases to use that information. For example, we use your personal data to process your applications, to help administer our services to you, to ensure we provide you with the best service possible, to prevent unauthorised access to your accounts and to meet our legal and regulatory obligations.

This Data Protection Notice is intended to explain to you how and why we process your personal data.

1. To fulfil a contract, or in the context of pre-contractual relations. To enter into and perform a contract for a service.

• In the context of pre-contractual relations

  Before we provide you with services, we have to gather some personal data to process your application and to assess the terms we can enter into the contract with you. This includes, for instance, the gathering and processing of personal information. The purpose for collecting information is to identify prospective clients and to assess whether the services requested by them are appropriate.

  If we don’t yet have a contract with you, but you have asked us (via ‘contact with us’, ‘live chat’) to do something as a first step (e.g. provide a quote), we need to process your personal data to do what you ask.

  To be able to start using our services, you first have to create a personal profile. To do so, please provide some personal data like your name, email address, phone number, and country. Once your account is created, you can open live and demo accounts and you’ll have the ability to receive some information with your prior consent.

  The above applies even if you don’t actually enter into a contract with us, as long as the processing was in the context of a potential contract with you; after two years the application expires and we delete your data.

• To fulfil a contract

  To open a live account for you, we need to collect information to establish your identity and the appropriateness of our services to you. To do this, we will request the personal information described below.

  We collect information to provide you with the services you need as per our Client Agreement:

  • to administer your accounts with us;
  • to manage and execute your orders or service requests;
  • to fulfil the concluded agreements with you.

  We use the information you provide to identify and prevent any unlawful actions or actions inconsistent with our Client Agreement, policies, Terms & Conditions and also to process, report and accept any payment – deposits or withdrawals – related with the provided services. In addition, this information helps us fulfil our regulatory requirements in relation to the conclusion of this contract with you.

  From time to time, we may request further information to help us improve the services we provide. Separately, we may also need further information as part of our regulatory obligations to maintain the data.

  As part of this process, we may be required to pass some personal information to an intermediary or counterparty (e.g. if you perform a payment transaction, we pass information on the progress of the transaction to our payment providers or banks).

  If you choose not to provide some information, this may mean that we cannot provide you with the service you have requested.

  We keep the information as up to date as possible and will change any details, such as your address, promptly when you inform us that they have changed.

2. To comply with legal obligations

We are required to process your personal information to comply with certain legal obligations, for example:

• to report and respond to queries raised and to provide information to regulatory authorities (e.g. Financial Services Commission of Belize or the Financial Intelligence Unit), law enforcement and other government agencies;
• for age verification;
• for the provision of information to the Data Protection Authorities in connection with obligations provided by the GDPR;
• to verify the personal data provided to us and to meet our legal and compliance obligations, including the prevention of money laundering, tax avoidance, financing of terrorism and fraud. For example, we are required to identify you, verify your identity, check your activity and transactions and ascertain your money laundering risk profile. To investigate allegations of fraud and prevent fraud by third parties or customers;
• to gather information about our clients’ knowledge and experience, financial capacity, investment objectives and attitude to risk/return about the services offered before providing any services;
• to meet the obligations provided by:
  • the Money Laundering And Terrorism (Prevention) Act
  • the Standard Conditions For Trading In Securities or Trading In Foreign Exchange Licence of Financial Services Commission of Belize
  • the Accounting Records (Maintenance) Act 2013
  • the Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of both the European Parliament and the Council on 27th April 2016 and all the regulations of the Financial Services Commission of Belize
  • and other related statutory instruments, in relation to proper and lawful accounting;
• to provide information to the court and third parties, in the course of proceedings before a court, in accordance with the requirements of procedural and other legal acts applicable;

3. Where you have provided consent

In some cases, we process your personal data only upon your prior consent. The consent is a separate reason for processing your personal data, and the purpose of the processing is specified therein.

If you give us the appropriate consent and until you withdraw it, we use your personal data:

• to make you aware of services which may be of interest to you.
• to provide you with customised offers and personalised customer service;
• to provide ongoing information or opportunities we believe may be of interest to you;
• to review your ongoing needs;
• to provide occasional emails about useful features, offers and other marketing related messages;
• to send our newsletters or information about other opportunities we believe will be of interest to you (we will only send this to you if you have indicated that you wish to receive such information);
• to notify users about updates to our website;
• to improve the content of the website;
• to customise the content and/or the layout of the website for each individual user

To be able to do this, we will ask you for your consent. You can, at any time, withdraw that consent through managing your profile/section subscriptions from Backoffice.

The information we collect about you and how it is used

The information we hold about you can vary depending on the services you use. This includes personal information which you give to us when you are looking for a service, personal information we collect automatically (your IP address and the date and time you accessed our services when you visit our website or platform), and personal information we receive from other sources.

A more detailed look at the information we hold about you, including examples of how we use it, is outlined in the following:

Identity & contact information

What

Name, surname, date of birth, country of residence, nationality and other information available on your ID, as well as copies of the ID. Home address, copies of provided proof of address, contact details, email address and phone number. Tax residency and tax-related information. A video recording of you and a photographic image (Your video verification confirming your identity and ID documents).

Why

We use this type of information to identify you and to help us combat fraud and other illegal activity. Your contact information is needed:

• to manage and administer your accounts, products and services;
• to send you service, support and administrative messages, reminders, technical notices, updates, security alerts and information requested by you;
• to notify you about either important changes or developments to the features and operation of those products and services.

We also use this information to respond to your enquiries and complaints.

We also collect and process identity information and Sensitive Personal Data to comply with our Know Your Customer (“KYC”) obligations under the applicable laws and regulations, and Anti-Money Laundering laws and regulations.

Financial details/Risk appetite information

What

Trading account details, digital account details, bank account details, credit/debit card details, income details, application processing and administration records, your employment status and employment details, investment details, transaction details, financial needs/attitudes, trading experience, information relating to power of attorney arrangements.

Why

Based on a review of the information contained in your client profile, we can, for example, effectively analyse which service might work best for you, or which services you may need, and we then offer these to you. We also use your risk appetite to help us determine the suitability of products for investment.

Information to help us better serve your needs

What

Information gathered from simulations, applications, competition entries etc. Interactions with HilltopSwipe staff by phone, email or through our digital channels. Your comments and suggestions, past complaints.

Why

We collect this information to analyse, assess and improve our services to customers, and also for training and quality control purposes. For example, we may monitor or record any communication between you and us including telephone calls.

Information made available by another party or in a public domain

What

Publicly available information, including information on your social media profile where it is publicly accessible. Information about you which is obtained from other parties, for example, joint account holders or people appointed to act on your behalf. Information available in public and private databases with regards to anti-money laundering checks.

Why

We sometimes use this type of information to verify that the information we hold on our databases is correct. We also use this information to help us understand our relationship with you and to help us offer you products and services we believe are of interest to you.

Information which you have consented to us using

What

To allow us to contact you through certain channels to offer you relevant products and services. We collect information about your internet activity using technology known as cookies, which can often be controlled through internet browsers. We collect information about your internet browser settings or otherwise Internet Protocol (IP) and other relevant information to help us identify your geographic location when providing you with our services.

Why

We use online activity data to provide you with the best possible experience when using our website. We use your internet protocol address to estimate your geographic location, and we use your location to filter certain features available to your country, such as different payment methods. We may also use your location information to develop anonymised analytical models to improve our services. The analysis is never personal, and you will never be identifiable.

 

HilltopSwipe may record phone conversations, and other interactions (email or through our digital channels), with you. You will always be informed when calls with our staff members are being recorded.

We may collect your comments and suggestions, past complaints to analyse, assess and improve our services, and also for training and quality control purposes. For example, we may monitor or record any communications between you and ourselves, including telephone calls.

We may collect information about you which is obtained from other parties, for example, joint account holders or people appointed to act on your behalf.

We will request this information from you via our application forms; documents necessary for opening a trading account; declarations, provided by you; email and other channels for correspondence as well as telephone communication with you.

We collect information indirectly through the use of cookies, which are addressed below in this Notice.

HilltopSwipe shall not be responsible in the event of insufficient parental control that leads to HilltopSwipe receiving personal data from children under 18. If HilltopSwipe does receive such personal data, it shall be deleted immediately.

HilltopSwipe does not accept children aged under 18 as clients and does not collect personal data on them.

You can control the personal information you have given to HilltopSwipe

When your personal data is handled in connection with a service provided by us, you are entitled to rely on a number of rights. These rights allow you to exercise meaningful control over the way in which your personal data is processed. You may execute any of these rights free of charge (in certain exceptional circumstances a reasonable fee may be charged, or HilltopSwipe may refuse to act on the request), and we may ask you to verify your identity prior to proceeding with your instruction by way of requesting additional documentation from you. Once we are satisfied that we have effectively verified your identity, we will respond to the majority of requests without undue delay and within a one month period. HilltopSwipe will action your request to have your personal data corrected within 10 calendar days. These periods may be extended in exceptional circumstances, and we will inform you where the extended period applies to you, along with an explanation of the reasons for the extension.

You are entitled to:

1. Access your personal data

   You can access the personal data we hold about you by contacting us with a data access request using the channels outlined in the Section ‘How you can contact HilltopSwipe’ from above. We will endeavour to provide you with as complete a list of personal data as possible. However, it can happen that some personal data from backup files, logs and stored records may not be included in that list as this information is not processed by HilltopSwipe on an ongoing basis and it is not therefore immediately available. For that reason, this personal data may not be communicated to you. However, this personal data remains subject to standard data maintenance procedures and will only be processed and retained by those procedures.

2. Correct/ restrict /delete your personal data

   If you believe that certain personal data we hold about you is inaccurate or out of date, you can look for the data to be corrected at any time using the channels outlined in the Section ‘How you can contact HilltopSwipe’ from above after we have verified the information. If you dispute the accuracy of the information held, you can request that we restrict this information while your complaint is being examined.

   If you suspect that we are processing certain information without a legitimate reason, or that we are no longer entitled to use your personal data, you can also ask for that personal data to be deleted.

   We are not under an obligation to rectify or delete your personal data where to do so would prevent us from meeting our contractual obligations to you, or where HilltopSwipe is required, or permitted, to process your personal information for legal purposes or otherwise in accordance with our legal obligations.

   We ask that you keep us informed of any relevant change in your personal data to enable us to keep the data on our systems up to date and accurate.

3. Withdraw your consent

   Whenever you have provided us with your consent to process your personal data, for example, so that we can contact you about one of our services, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time through managing your profile/section subscriptions from Backoffice. If you withdraw your consent to process (and if there is no other justification for continuing to process your data), you are also entitled to request that your personal data be deleted. Withdrawing your consent does not affect the lawfulness of any processing undertaken by us based on your consent before its withdrawal.

4. Object to your personal data being used for certain purposes

   If you disagree with the way in which we process certain data, you can object to this through one of the channels identified in the Section ‘How you can contact HilltopSwipe’ from above. In such cases, we will provide you with details regarding the rationale for processing your personal data.

   Some operations are automated, with no human intervention, and this may include making decisions based solely or mainly on automated processing. For more details see Section ‘Why and how we use automated algorithms and decision making’ below. If you disagree with the outcome of such automated decision-making process, you can speak to an HilltopSwipe member to express your point of view and contest the decision using one of the contact channels identified in the Section ‘How you can contact HilltopSwipe’ from above.

5. Request your personal data to be transferred in electronic form

   You can (in certain cases) request that your personal data is transferred to you or another service provider so that you can store and reuse your personal data for your own purposes across different services. We will not be in any way accountable or liable for damage, loss or distress sustained, incurred or suffered by you and/or the designated service provider as a result of improper use of the personal data upon, and after, receipt from us.

6. Right to complain

   If you believe that we are breaching the applicable legislation, please contact us to clarify the issue. Of course, you have the right to file a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in the Member State of your residence, place of work or place of the alleged infringement.

   After 25^th May 2018, you will be able to file a complaint with a regulatory body within the EU.

7. How to exercise your rights.

   You can exercise the rights outlined above free of charge by contacting us using any of the channels from the Section ‘How you can contact HilltopSwipe’ from above.

   We recommend that you provide as much detail as possible in your correspondence with us so that we can deal with your query promptly and efficiently. You may be asked to provide proof of identification and/ or additional information to validate your identity when making such a request.

Security and Confidentiality

We use a variety of security technologies and procedures to help protect your personal data from unauthorised access, use or disclosure. We also take steps to ensure that only persons with appropriate authorisation can access your personal data.

We have systems and procedures in place to prevent unauthorised access, improper modification or disclosure, misuse or loss of information.

Only staff members who are suitably authorised can access your personal data, if that data is relevant to the performance of their duties, whether it be in connection with the providing of services or in accordance with legal or regulatory obligations. This may include, for example, staff members working in our Marketing and Sales Department, Finance Department, Customer Support Department, Management Board or customer services representatives.

We use internal technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data from unauthorised access, to maintain data accuracy and to help ensure the appropriate use of your personal data. These security measures include encryption of your personal data, firewalls, intrusion detection systems, physical protection of facilities where your personal data is stored and strong security procedures across all service operations. Your personal data is only accessible by a limited number of people who are required to keep the data confidential. We use strong encryption algorithms for the transmission and storage of your Information.

To ensure the security of information transfer we use SSL certificate with 256-bit encryption to encrypt the information transmitted by or to any visitor through our website.

We will not sell or hire your personal information to third parties for their own use.

Why and how we use automated algorithms and Decision Making

We use automated algorithms to enable us to deliver decisions within a shorter time frame and to improve the efficiency of our processes and services.

An example of where we use automated decision-making involves assessing your application and risk appetite, the information you have provided in your application, your trading experience, income, employment details, etc.;

HilltopSwipe uses this information to apply internal risk assessment rules consistently. This ensures that your application is treated fairly, efficiently and that we believe you are eligible for the services we offer.

Cookies

We use “cookie” technology on our website to collect information. A cookie is a small data file that a website stores on your computer’s hard disk to keep records of when you visit the website. Cookies allow us to improve your comfort of use, for example, by remembering your passwords and viewing preferences, thus allowing you to visit various “member-only” parts of the website without re-registering. Furthermore, cookies are used by us to measure activity on the website and make improvements and updates based on which areas are popular and which are not.

Cookies can be read by the website on user’s subsequent visits. The information stored in a cookie may relate to user’s browsing habits on the web page, or a unique identification number so that the website can identify the user on his return visit.

Cookies can improve the browsing experience throughout the duration of the user’s visit and even on repeat visits by saving settings for the various elements of the website.

HilltopSwipe uses cookies to collect information about visitors’ use of the website, including things like connection speed, operating system details, computer hardware configuration, the time and duration of each visit, IP addresses, location and more.

The information collected by cookies enables HilltopSwipe to understand the use of its site, including the number of visitors it has, the pages viewed per session, time exposed to particular pages, etc. This, in turn, helps to provide visitors with a better experience.

HilltopSwipe will not attempt to personally identify visitors from their IP addresses unless this is required for fraud identification or any other reason required by law.

Visitors can use most of HilltopSwipe’s website with no loss of functionality if cookies are disabled from the web browser. However, the Backoffice requires cookies to be enabled for the service to function properly.

Cookies do not in any way compromise the security of your computer.

To enable or disable cookies, follow the instructions provided by the web browser, which are usually located within the ‘Help’, ‘Tools’ or ‘Edit’ menus.

HilltopSwipe doesn’t use cookies to track users’ and clients’ internet usage after leaving our website and doesn’t store information that third parties could read or track. We will not exchange, sell, or lease cookie information without the express consent of the users.

In addition, we use “Google Analytics” to analyse the use of our website. “Google Analytics” generates statistical and other information about website use by means of cookies on users’ computers. The information generated in relation to our website is used to create reports about the use of the website. “Google” will store this information. “Google’s privacy policy” is available at: http://www.google.com/privacypolicy.html.

Do we share your personal information?

HilltopSwipe sometimes shares your personal data with trusted third parties who perform important functions for us, based on our instructions and applying appropriate confidentiality and security measures. For example, we use third-party service providers for security or technical issues. We go into more detail below about the reasons we share personal information with third parties.

We provide your personal data to third parties, and our primary purpose is to offer you qualitative, fast and comprehensive service by taking care of the services we offer to meet your expectations. We do not provide your personal data to third parties before we are sure that all technical and organisational measures have been taken to protect this data as we do strict control to meet this goal. In this case, we remain responsible for the confidentiality and security of your data.

We provide personal data to the following categories of recipients (personal data controllers/personal data processors):

• To our trusted third-party service providers or partners to verify your identity and your account details, storing or processing Personal Information on our behalf. We provide the personal information pursuant to a contract concluded between us, based on our instructions and in accordance with applicable data protection legislation;
• When we engage services of solicitors, lawyers, auditors, valuers and other consultants to act on our behalf, or persons performing consultant services in different fields;
• When we work with persons you have instructed to represent you, or any other person you have informed us is authorised to give instructions or to use the account or services on your behalf (such as under a power of attorney);
• When we engage the services of our banks and payment providers or other partners, or we use specialist third parties such as liquidity providers, Skrill Limited, Paysafe Holdings UK Limited, VISA and MasterCard to help us process your payments;
• When we are required to cooperate by law or otherwise through a legal process with Belize and other regulatory and enforcement bodies such as the Financial Services Commission of Belize or the Financial Intelligence Unit, Central banks, the courts, fraud prevention agencies or other bodies;
• We work with companies that support HilltopSwipe to identify and analyse your user behaviour on our website, for example, Google Analytics.
• To postal operators regarding sending items containing contracts, agreements and other documents and the need to verify the identity when they are delivered;
• To entities that provide equipment, software and hardware used for the processing of personal data and needed to build the company’s network and to perform various services of accounting, payment of services and products, technical support, etc.;
• To persons providing service support to terminal equipment;
• To authorities, institutions and individuals to which we are required to provide personal data under the applicable legislation;
• To providers of electronic authentication services where a document related to the provision of a product or service is signed with a digital signature;
• To persons providing services of organising, storing, indexing and destruction of archives in hard and/or electronic copies.

We sometimes may need to share information with organisations which are located, or who otherwise undertake processing outside, the European Economic Area (EEA). We will however only transfer personal data to a country or territory outside of the EEA if that country provides an adequate level of protection for personal data, as set down by the European Commission. Or we may send the information outside the EEA where the transfer is made under a legally binding agreement which covers the EU requirements for the transfer of personal data to data processors outside of the EEA.

We may disclose personal data relating to our customers to any third party in the event of a sale, transfer, assignment, disposal (or potential sale, transfer, assignment or disposal), merger, liquidation, receivership, of all, or substantially all or any part of the enterprise or the assets of HilltopSwipe.

Third-party collection of information

Our policy only addresses the use and disclosure of the information we collect from you. If you disclose your information to other parties via our Services (e.g., by clicking on a link to another website or application) or via other sites or applications, different rules may apply to their use or disclosure of the information you disclose to them.

It is important to note that such third-party services may have their own privacy policies and we advise you to read them carefully. Before using third-party sites, applications or services, we recommend you read and understand those sites’ and services’ terms and conditions, warranty, and privacy policies and to ensure you agree to their terms.

How long will we retain your personal information?

How long certain personal information is stored depends on the nature of the information we hold and the purposes for which they are processed. As a rule, we stop using your personal data for the contractual relationship after the termination of the contract with you, but we do not delete the data immediately.

HilltopSwipe determines appropriate retention periods as having regard to any statutory obligations imposed on us by law. For example, we are required to retain some customer information for 5 years after the date the relevant business or transaction was completed, or termination of the business relationship, whichever is the later after in accordance to Article 16, paragraph 4 from the Money Laundering and Terrorism (Prevention) Act. According to art. 6, paragraph 2 of the Accounting Records (Maintenance) Act 2013, suspicious transaction or a continuing investigation into money laundering/criminal activity relating to a client or a transaction, we are obliged to keep some information, related to such client or transaction until the conclusion of such investigation or the period of five years, whichever is the later.

You should note that we will not delete or anonymise your personal data if it is necessary for pending court, administrative proceedings or proceedings related to your complaint to us.

If the purpose for which the information was obtained has ceased and the personal data is no longer required, the personal data will be deleted or anonymised which means that your personal data is stripped of all possible identifying characteristics. HilltopSwipe has put in place procedures to ensure that files are regularly purged and that personal information is not retained any longer than is necessary.

Updates to our Data Protection Notice

We keep this notice under regular review and from time to time will look to amend it to reflect changes to the way in which we are processing personal information. The most recent version will always be available at our website HilltopSwipe.com.

If the amendments we make are substantial, we can post a message about the changes made to our News section of the website. We invite you to regularly review the current version of this Data Protection Notice, to be constantly informed about how we take care of the protection of the personal data we collect.

This Data Protection Notice has been updated for the last time on 1^st August, 2020.